According to Associated Press, Japan's weather agency says a volcano in southern Japan has resumed eruptions of ash. The Meteorological Agency issued a warning saying that Shinmoedake volcano had resumed shooting out gas, boulders and ash after a couple weeks of inactivity. The mountain is on the other side of Japan from the epicenter of Friday's magnitude 8.9 earthquake and resulting tsunami, which devastated much of the country's northeast coast. It was unclear if the eruptions were linked to quake.

Tokyo has doubled the number of rescuers to 100,000 and is still struggling to control the crisis at two nuclear power stations.

The developments today:

• Up to 10,000 people may have died in Miyagi prefecture, a police official there has told broadcaster NHK. Miyagi was the area worst-hit by the double disaster. The previous estimate of the death toll was around 1,800, although police had said they were unable to make contact with 9,500 people in the devastated town of Minamisanriku.

• Japan is still struggling to control the crisis at two nuclear power plants damaged in Friday's huge earthquake and tsunami. The emergency cooling system has failed at another reactor.

• As many as 190 people may have been exposed to radiation. Potentially unsafe levels have been detected in 22 people.

• Aftershocks also continue to hit the region, with two tremors of 6.2 magnitude earlier today.

• Millions remain without power and drinking water and reports from the disaster zone suggest many survivors are struggling to find food.

Kyodo is reporting the Japanese trade minister as saying there is unlikely to be a large-scale power blackout in Tokyo on Thursday.

NHK reports that the emergency crew has begun spraying reactor 3 by water cannon. About 20 minutes ago NHK had reported that spraying had been temporarily called off due to high radiation levels.

At least 20 people have fallen ill due to possible radiation contamination - in addition to 19 injured and two missing at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi plant, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported.

Distinction should be made between the effects of direct radiation and the inhalation of radioactive contaminants. You can easily move away from a direct radiation source to safety, but inhaling radio action contamination is a different matter. once in your lungs it stays with you.

The real-world comparison is quite disquieting, the measurement in the city 65km away, outside the exclusion zone, would expose one to the equivalent of one stomach x-ray per hour, 24 hours per day. Exposing a patient to that amount of radiation would be considered dangerously unacceptable and outrageous in my profession.

A German geoscience centre has produced an animation of the flash of earthquakes that have affected Japan in the last eight days. It's available here http://bit.ly/ejRHpe

Here are the latest minute-by-minute updates on the aftermath of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami as the struggle continues to avert a full-blown nuclear disaster in the reactors at Fukushima.

Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel was jeered as she announced that her country should make a "measured exit" from nuclear power.

France is to send 95 tonnes of boron to help try to cool the reactors, the Energy and Industry Minister Eric Besson said, after offering it first last Saturday.

Spiking levels of radiation at Fukushima caused by the failing reactors can clearly be seen in this graph.

Radioactive particles have been detected on 25 passengers arriving in Taiwan from Japan, according to the authorities there, who have deployed specialist military units trained in nuclear defence at its three airports. It's not clear what they're hoping to achieve but food arriving from Japan is now being screened.

Cash machines across Tokyo are shutting down, reportedly caused by the sudden increase in withdrawals.The price of gold has jumped by $2 an ounce in the city, and there are claims of long queues at passport centres as people attempt to leave Japan for the first time in their lives.

"Based on scientific evidence there is absolutely no reason to leave Tokyo," Japan government official says amid growing exodus, according to NBC News.

Twitter has picked up on elderly people dying after the hospital they were in had to be evacuated due to radiation fears.

More and more expats are trying to leave Japan.

Readers have remarked on our man Julian Ryall's moving piece from Ishinomaki. I've posted a flavour below in case you missed it or the full article is here.

Many of the children taking refuge at the Kama Elementary School, on the eastern fringes of the town of Ishinomaki, are playing in the corridors or helping their parents scrub mud-coated boots in the filthy water of the school pool.

But the atmosphere in the room on the third floor, where 30 children whose parents simply disappeared when the tsunami swept through the town, is very different.

Viewed through the window, the children sit more still and are apparently engrossed in books or card games. They are watched over by other relatives or teachers and we are not allowed to enter or speak with them. Understandably, they do not want their charges to have more reminders of the disaster that has befallen them.

Masami Hoshi was the sports teacher at the school but, since the Japanese tsunami, has been trying to get enough food for the 657 people living in the four-storey school building and locate missing students and their parents.

Japan continues to battle disaster and hardship after a ferocious tsunami spawned by one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded slammed the eastern coast of Honshu on Friday. Thousands are feared dead, as the force of nature swept away boats, cars and homes while widespread fires burned out of control. Powerful aftershocks continue to rock the island nation and the emerging threat of nuclear accidents from disaster-crippled reactors adds a fearsome new dimension to the situation.

Evacuees are screened for radiation contamination at a testing center Tuesday, March 15, 2011, in Koriyama city, Fukushima Prefecture, northern Japan, four days after a massive earthquake and tsunami struck the country's north east coast.

Exhausted engineers attached a power cable to the outside of Japan's tsunami-crippled nuclear plant on Saturday in a desperate attempt to get water pumps going that would cool down overheated fuel rods and prevent the deadly spread of radiation.